


Darkwater

by zsomeone



Category: Metalocalypse
Genre: Alternate Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-20
Updated: 2012-05-20
Packaged: 2018-03-16 23:59:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3507509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zsomeone/pseuds/zsomeone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by weird-ass dark river water, and my strange fascination with Shadowlands.  AU and an unresolved mess I don’t clean up.<br/>Warning: Contains words not found in dictionaries</p>
            </blockquote>





	Darkwater

They stood on the bank, probably lost.   
Find a river and follow it, that was what everybody always said to do, and they had been, but apparently in the wrong direction because the going had only gotten wilder. Skwisgaar considered turning back, but they’d come this far and surely they had to be getting close to _somewhere._ In the other direction nothing lay for hours ahead, that was known fact.

Toki was staring down into the water agin, he kept stopping and doing that. He would stand transfixed until Skwisgaar prodded him into moving again. There was nothing there, or if there was it couldn’t be seen, swallowed by the oddly dark water. Even their reflections were eaten, instead of the usual mirror effect their reflections were faded, becoming mere featureless shadows by the height of their faces.

“Toki, comes on. We can’ts stays here.” Skwisgaar poked him in the arm but this time Toki ignored him, squatting down to peer at the water more closely. “Toki? Heys?” Again he got no response. What was Toki looking at so intently? All he could see were their reflections, poor and faded as they were. Toki’s was brighter since he was down closer, but still darker than it seemed it should have been.  
Everything seemed unnaturally quiet and still.

Toki reached out, fingers barely over the surface of the water, his own hand seeming to reach from the depths toward him, brighter and more real than it had any right to be.  
Toki touched the surface, then slid forward and into the water with barely a ripple, disappearing into the dark.  
It was as if he’d never even been there at all.

Skwisgaar waited impatiently for him to surface, this wasn’t funny.  
“Toki, yous fucksing dildo, I knows you can swims. Gets your ass backs up here now!”  
Nothing, still nothing.  
Not even bubbles.  
“Toki!” He squatted down, trying unsuccessfully to peer beneath the surface, trying to see any trace but there was nothing at all. 

Minutes passed. This wasn’t funny anymore, hadn’t ever been funny. How long could Toki hold his breath? Surely not _this_ long.  
What if it wasn’t a dumb joke? What if he’d hit his head, or gotten caught under a root?  
“Toki?” He didn’t really expect a response anymore. “Shits, well I guess I has to be savings your ass den.” Skwisgaar dove into the darkwater.

And fell into another world.  
Everything was dark, muted. He’d become his reflection, an insubstantial faded shadow of himself. The air... was it air? ...was too thick, and shades of things he couldn’t make out scuttled at the far edges of his vision, lurking.  
When the hands grabbed him from behind, he would have screamed if screaming had been possible in this muted place.

“It’s justs me, it’s justs me, oh fucks why dids you follows me?” Toki spoke softly, the only way speech was possible here.  
Skwisgaar turned to face him, grasping his arms and holding on. He was shadow reflection too, but felt reassuringly solid. “Toki? What de fucks?”  
“Why dids you follows me? Now we’s both lost.”  
“I was... savings you? Where the hells ams we anyways, does you know?”

Toki hesitated before answering. “Darkwater.” He laughed, but it was a desolate sound with no humor in it. “Well you dids always wants to be immortals...”  
“Can we gets out?”  
“I don’ts knows yet. Don’ts think so though.” He saw Skwisgaar’s questioning look and shrugged. “You just starts knowing stuffs here. In five minutes you’ll knows everything I knows now. But I don’ts likes what I knows.”  
“At least warns me if you cans?” He didn’t like this not knowing crap _at all._

Toki pulled Skwisgaar closer, wrapping his arms around him protectively. Skwisgaar resisted, wanting to keep an eye on the shadow-things he still couldn’t quite make out.  
“Relax, it’s okays. I don’ts think they can hurts us.”  
“You don’ts know?”   
“Noes, but I’ll knows befores you.”  
Giving in, Skwisgaar pressed his face against Toki’s neck and held on. He still smelled faintly like Toki, that was reassuring.

“There’s no times here... it don’ts exists...” Toki was speaking against Skwisgaar’s chest, relaying knowledge as it came to him. “We’s supposeds to bring others here, lures them... They woulds sees us like the reflections... buts when they reaches, they comes here.”  
“Likes de mersmaids?” Knowledge was catching up with Skwisgaar.  
“Yeah, likes that. I thinks... I thinks we’s supposed to brings the rest of he bands down here. I can’ts does it, I can’ts does it to them.”  
“No, I can’ts eithers. Dey woulds sees us besides dem in their reflectsions, ja.”

The darkwater, the not-water, pushed them, trying to separate them or force them to act. Flowing in the direction they had come, trying to shove them toward people, their people, to lure into the dark.  
They fought it, holding tight and not letting it tear them apart.  
Skwisgaar looked up, the shadowcreatures were closer, swirling around them, some humanoid and some not. He bent his face into Toki’s neck once more, trusting him to warn if they were in danger from these things. The tension in Toki’s body said they might be, but he was still minutes behind and in the dark.

“We has to goes there, we don’ts gots a choice. But we can stays down where they can’ts sees us, that’s maybes all we can does.” The unseen currents were stronger now, and still growing.  
“Don’ts lets me go, Toki, don’ts lets me go...”  
“I never lets you go.”  
Skwisgaar felt Toki’s arms lock hard around him, making it hard to breathe but he didn’t care. He wasn’t sure he needed to breathe anyway. He squeezed back the best he could, but knew if it had been up to him alone he wouldn’t have been able to hold on, he just wasn’t quite strong enough. Alone in this place was unthinkable. And Toki hadn’t wanted him to follow...

They lost their footing, such as it was, and were swept away in a river of dark shadows and soundless screams.  
Toki hooked his knees behind Skwisgaar’s, locking them together as they tumbled together through the currents of the untime.   
Silence screamed too loud to hear.  
Skwisgaar felt Toki speak, but the words were lost unknown.  
And still they clung, determined.

They came to a stop, all the sudden the mysterious currents were just gone. Toki unwound himself, and Skwisgaar released his hold reluctantly, trusting that Toki knew it was safe to now.  
Peering up through the surface, they could vaguely see shapes. It was _so_ tempting to rise for a closer look...  
“Toki, where ams we?” His voice was only a whisper now, soon he feared he might not be able to speak at all.  
“Back.” Equally soft, Toki’s tone still conveyed all that was needed to know. They were back where the others were.

Vague shapes walking above them. How long had they been lost? How long before they’d been discovered as missing?  
They’d probably thought they’d just snuck off for some “alone times” and not even missed them until now, whenever now actually was. The untime had swallowed their sense of it’s passing, but they’d been lost for hours before, that much was certain.  
Shadows walking above the darkwater, pacing... calling?  
No sound traveled below.

The urge to rise was overpowering.  
Nathan! Pickles! Murderface! Pull us out! Charles! We’re right here! Pull us out!  
But they fought it, staying low, holding tight once again.  
Go join them go join them go join them, the darkwater whispered through their veins, through every part of them. Together together, all down together all drown together, down, drown, come down...  
Skwisgaar squeezed his eyes tight and sought Toki’s lips in the dark.

Toki kissed him back desperately, and the whispers retreated a bit.  
"I can’ts does it, I won’t does it, I can’ts brings them down here...” Toki whispered between kisses.  
“I can’ts eithers.” Skwisgaar agreed, they were all each other truly had.  
Unless they brought them down. The others.  
They _wouldn’t_ bring them down.  
But the darkwater wanted them all.

Toki tried to say something, but no sound came out.  
“Toki?” The whisper was faint and when he tried to say more, Skwisgaar fund that his words had been stolen as well. They were locked in silence, unless they cooperated and brought others down into the dark.  
Which they wouldn’t do.  
Especially not _these_ others, no, the dark couldn’t have them.

No words no breath no time.  
Nothing.  
Nothing but what couldn’t be taken away.  
They had never really needed words between them anyway, not so great a loss.  
On the surface, faces staring.  
Beneath the water, bodies yearning.

Forever had become an instant, and every instant lasts forever.  
Above, beyond, life goes on.  
Beneath, underneath, hearts beat as one.  
Fighting forever the urge to rise and beckon.  
Words unneeded, resolve unflinching.  
Darkwater and untime and lost forever.  
Together.


End file.
